Conventional computers are very noisy devices. The main source of the noise generated is the cooling fan in the computer housing. The noise of the airflow and the mechanical vibration of the fan form a main part of the loud noise, which is highly undesirable.
The noise emitted by a personal computer in either a home or office is distracting and annoying, and can have negative effects on the productivity of the users. Also, the loud noise can interfere with activities such as listening to music or sleeping.
Liquid cooling systems are getting more and more popular. But it is too expensive (even more expensive than most CPU) to be everyone's choice. And the price is not the only problem, once the tubes failed and leaked the cooling solution, it could result in electrical shorts and irreparable internal damage. And the liquid cooling systems are still noisy because it requires pump to circulate the liquid.
What is needed is an operable computer with lowest use of mechanical fans or pumps. Such a computer would be expected to operate quieter, to be more compact than current models, and to have enhanced reliability without any substantial cost penalty.
Such a computer is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,120, in which one side of the housing is configured to be a cooling body. But it is not the face (of motherboard) with CPU installed being mounted to the cooling body, so the heat sink will not have direct contact with high thermal dissipating object. It is not efficient for cooling.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,582,298 B2 shows a computer with two sides of the housing configured to be cooling bodies. But it is designed for data center. It requires a customized motherboard to fit around the heat pipes. It could utilize only two smaller faces around the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) to install heat sinks because of high-density server environment.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,867,985 B2 shows a passively cooled computer with cooling ribs pointing outwards. A motherboard is arranged in between cooling ribs, with processor and hard disk drives being pressed against one of the cooling bodies. It is not easy to increase storage volume, because the hard disk drives are coupled with the processor and the cooling bodies.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,072,179 B1 describes a computer with integrated display. The back side of the housing is configured to be a cooling body. But the heat sink is enclosed in a closed box and it is not efficient to dissipate the waste heat.